Irken Mythology 101
by The Invader Androgynous
Summary: Every culture has traditions rich in myth and the supernatural. The Irkens are no exception.
1. Creationism

Irken Mythology 101

Not to say that ANY of this is canon. Just, was having a rather long RP with Cyndy, and some of these "Irken Gods" popped up in it, decided to work on writing it out as a story because I thought it might be interesting. Written in "Bedtime Story" format, like it were being told to a child at bedtime or perhaps to a group gathered around a fire. 

~

In the beginning, there was only Irk, and Irk was dark. There was no light, no air, no life, merely miles and miles of cold rock that stretched in a small globe, hovering in the emptiness of space. Irk was lonely. Her heart ached. She stretched her arms to the sky, but no one answered.

So in her loneliness, Irk created the first star, the Saura. Its rays warmed the surface of Irk and threw brightness into her lonely heart. For the first time in thousands of years, Irk our mother smiled. 

After a thousand years or so, the Saura grew lonely. It had only its mother to speak with, after all. There were no other stars in the heavens, and the other planets were distant and cold. They were unfriendly to the Saura and to Irk, turning their cold shoulders on the small planet.

So the Irk birthed nine more children, the nine daughters of Irk, our moons. The moons were smaller then the Saura, and supposed to make it happy. Unfortunately the moons were cold and disliked the Saura. They were jealous of it and did everything they could to bring it down.

They called it names. They danced around the Irk, taunting her and laughing. Their faces reflected the Saura's warm yellow rays in a cold, silver tone. The Saura felt more alone that it ever had with the daughters of Irk constantly tormenting and belittling it.

The Saura pleaded with the Irk for a friend, someone who would be kind to it, but Irk wouldn't listen. Irk was tired of the constant nagging and tormenting of her daughters. Irk was jealous of anyone who should threaten her relationship with the Saura, which is most likely why the daughters of Irk were so cold. They had been born from her jealousy, not her love. She'd tried hard to give her child something it would love, but her own heart had prevented it from being a thing of joy.

Finally, the Saura took matters into its own hands. Stealing dust from the skies, it crafted a living being, the very first Irken, and infused its warming power into him. Hence, he had orange skin instead of the lovely green tone we Irkens possess today. 

From its love, the Saura named the first Irken "Life" and placed him upon the surface of Irk, where he could grow and be happy. Life saw the barren planet and decided that he had much work to do. He began to build great forests.

The daughters of Irk saw his forests and grew angry from their spite. They sent great storms to destroy his forests, and littered the surface with frozen acid. They tore up everything he created that they could see. 

Life, however, is rarely a creature that can be defeated easily. He found a pocket within the heart of our mother Irk, a cave. There, he created beautiful things that could survive from the warmth of the Saura's love on the face of Irk without ever seeing it. 

He created plants, animals, food, everything he needed to live. He created things of great beauty. He painted the first art works from the colors of the sky. The lands the great cities were built on were his sleeping quarters, his palaces.

The best thing was that the daughters of Irk could not destroy what was not on the surface of Irk. That didn't mean that they didn't know that he had created great things, things they considered hateful below the surface. It just meant that they couldn't destroy them.

This angered the daughters of Irk more than they'd ever been angered. They decided to kill Saura's creation. To do so they created a trap to ensnare him and break his heart, make him vulnerable to their mischief.

First they laid a field of white flowers upon the surface of Irk. Under the flowers they created a blanket of soft grass. Then, with gentle hands, they parted the flowers. Taking more dust from the sky, they created the second Irk. They infused their Irken with their cold white light, giving her skin a white-blue hue that seemed to shine like fine powder. If her skin had been any thinner you would have been able to see the organs right through her flesh.

The daughters of Irk, it seemed, had created woman.

She opened her eyes; they were a deep, deep violet that seemed to reflect the very depths of empty space. When she moved, the flowers rustled as though a gentle breeze had kissed them. Truly, the first woman was the most beautiful woman ever. While they had given her great beauty, they had not given her any kindness. Her heart was as cold as their light.

To top off their creation, they named her "Life" as well. When the first Life saw the second, everything went as the daughters of Irk had planned. He fell instantly in love with her for her beauty. He rushed to the bed of flowers and dropped to his knees, proposing they become mates in soul, one in heart.

She looked at him, smiled, and said "No."

For the next hundreds of thousands of nights he would court her during the day. Each sunset, as the daughters of Irk rose, he dropped to his knees and offered her a shining diamond and pleaded with her for marriage. Every night, she threw his present to the empty skies and rejected him. These lost diamonds can still be seen in the sky as stars. 

Never did she say more than "no," while dismissing him. That one simple word haunted and tormented his soul without rest. He thought if he kept trying, she would come to love him. She could not, as she had no heart, no place in her body for love. Instead she had simply ice and spite where her hearts should have been.

Then, for three days, she was left alone. He did not come to see her. He did not ask her to marry him. He did not bring her presents. For the first time in her life, Life knew loneliness. She knew the cold, as she did not have him to warm her arms in the night. She knew the pain of a lost lover, the broken tears that come with not being able to put your eyes on the one you care about. And for the first time, she knew what it was like to be afraid.

So she sought him out, venturing from her flower garden deep into the darkness of Irk, into the caves where he had laid out his hard work. She saw the great and beautiful things he had created, but she had no heart for them to move. 

Then she saw it. A great, glowing object. It was far more warm than the Saura had ever felt to her, as she lived her days in the twilight, the nights, and the dawns when the warm arms were retracted. It was beautiful, glowing red and brilliant, like fresh blood. It pulsed and drew her to it, tempting her.

"I was warned that you had no heart to love me with," Life explained, emerging from his hiding place. "So I clipped mine in twain and grew half of it to give to you. Even if you won't marry me, I want you to take it."

She looked fearfully at him. She was uncertain of what to do without the daughters of Irk whispering their commands to her. They had told her to accept his gifts, so she took the heart and accepted within herself, unknowingly gaining the ability to love.

Finally, he asked her to marry him one last time, not even daring to hope that she'd say yes. Instead of saying no, she said, "You can if you truly desire it, but you won't like it."

That was good enough for him! He wed her under the next morning's light of the Saura, failing to notice how uncomfortable she felt under its glare. It seemed to be criticizing her, sizing her up. Even Irk itself seemed hateful of her, as if blaming her for having come from the daughters of Irk.

That night, the daughters of Irk learned what had been done to their trap and threw a fit. "It's ruined, ruined!" one cried.

The ringleader was much smarter. The lead moon told their creation that she was never to bed with the male she had married, lest the flowers that she loved so well wither and die. They turned the goodness of her having learned to love against her. Terror filled her heart and she wept at the side of the flower patch. She had been born there. The flowers whispered to her. The flowers were her friends, her confidants.

Life found her there, weeping, and asked her to come to bed with him. She refused. He then commanded her to lie with him, stating his authority as her husband. Again she refused. He asked her why. Her pride would not allow her to tell him of the fate of the flowers should she lie beside him. His pride would not allow him to accept her silence.

He became angry, for the daughters of Irk were working their evil upon his heart. Since he and the girl shared the same heart, they used her body to attack his. Filled with their rage he set upon her, screaming that if she would not giving him his rights willingly, he would take them.

Her chest filled with the leaden feeling of dread. She ran as fast as she could. He sent a terrible wind to push her back. She fell to her knees and cried to the moons to save her, but they had turned their backs on her. 

He finally caught her and tore her clothes from her body. She tried to run from him but he threw her down. Her first blood seeped into the ground as he forced himself onto her, pushing and sweating. Through the whole thing she cried out in pain, but he would not listen. He was treated her like property, so consumed by the hatred of the moons was he.

When she finally managed to squirm free of him she fled to the flowerbed, but she was too late. They all had died. She remained there until first light, when the moons' hold on Life was broken. 

When the first Life saw what he had done to his new bride, he sank to the ground in shame. He created new flowers for her, but she would have no part of them. When he tried to approach her, she scratched his face and tore at his antennae. She wounded him in ways he didn't know he could be wounded. Emotionally, she shredded his mind, ripped his soul, and tore open his heart the way he'd torn open her bridal robe.

The damage had already been done. Over time her belly swelled with their first egg. She swore that the egg would be laid in the darkness, but Life realized that if she did that, the daughters of Irk would kill his child.

He tried carrying her down into his palaces, but she always fled from him the minute he turned his back. He didn't have the will to bind his wife, so he had no way of keeping her the minute he set her feet back down upon the ground.

So he and the Saura came up with a plot. The Saura would shine through the night of the egg's laying, weakening the power of the daughters of Irk to harm the smeet. This would cause great harm to the Saura, but its love for its child was so great that it was willing to do this.

As the egg slid from the female's body, a butterfly flew from the last remaining flower. When she seized it in her hands, it became a long silver blade. She plunged it into her breast, killing herself instantly. As her blood flowed into the ground, the flowers returned.

Life saw his wife dead and wept. In his anger, he decided to crush the egg that he believed had killed her. From the crushed egg sprang hundreds of small Irkens, the first of our true race, the first green skinned Irkens. They fled from Life, who intended to crush them for supposedly killing his wife. They hid in the caverns, huddling in fear of the monster on the surface, a monster that was supposed to be their loving father.

The female, however, still had the spark of love for her children within her. She slid from the ground, no longer alive but not truly dead. She was no longer a form of life, but Death. 

She rose from the ground and struck Life down, allowing her beloved children to escape and form the first Irken civilizations. She protected the children from Life with her motherly love, but at a horrible price. Since she was their protector, they would all one day enter her kingdom, the kingdom of Death.

Over time, the butterfly and silver became the signs of Death, who is present at the beginnings and ends of Life. Life's sign if the spider, which must take from others to survive. 

That is not the end of my story. Life never gave up on winning Death's love back, once he calmed down enough to realize what he'd done and repent. This is also why we grow old and die; Life is always chasing after Death. When our time is up, he catches her.

~

So, shall this be continued?


	2. The Thousand Deathless Nights

In the beginning a cold, gray depression settled upon the backs of the newly formed Irkens. Naked, hungry, and shivering they huddled in crevices too small to draw the attention of the vicious Life.

Now, my young ones, can you imagine what that life must have been like? Waking up each morning hungry, licking slime molds off the walls, when you were inches away from the most perfect garden ever created, when you could see and smell it with your own senses? Sometimes the Irkens became so hungry that their ribs were countable through their skin, while less than fifty meters away from a wondrous meal.

Should they dare slink into the forbidden gardens of the God life to fill their hungry middles, they risked a painful and bloody execution. For should the merciless God return early, he would seize up the tiny Irkens and devour their squeaking forms in a mouth of fire, punishment for having supposedly driven away his beloved. 

Among the Irkens, forgotten for his tiny stature, was a smeet named Carvin. Carvin adored the goddess Death, and hated the tyrant God life. He hated watching his sisters cry, their bellies swollen with hunger. Despite having just barely passed out of his first years, he was determined to put an end to the beast that had spilled blood upon his mother's robe.

While crawling within the deepest caverns he had found a substance that looked like the ice covering the surface of Irk, but more fluid. The light danced on it like a snake in agony. He was drawn to it, his eyes brilliant and wide. Slowly, he dipped his fingers into the pool.

He retracted it instantly, screaming in agony. The liquid ice was not beautiful, but deadly. It burned his body to the point where the skin had been stripped from his fingers. Wincing in pain, he wrapped his mangled claws in torn pieces of the robe he wore to protect his fragile young body from the cold of the deep caverns.

Now, if he had not been a clever child, he would have run screaming from that vat of snake acid and never returned to look back. But even as his fingers smoldered, Carvin was thinking. If the deadly liquid could be that painful to him, perhaps it could be used against one more powerful than he.

After much thought, the brilliant Carvin came up with a plan. He began making jars from damp clay. In his early attempts, he learned painfully that the wet clay burned him almost as badly as the liquid ice. To protect himself, he used torn rags from his robes to create form-fitting wraps for his hands. Today we give Carvin credit for creating devices that allowed the Irkens immunity to deadly acids by calling then "Carveens," the Irken word that translates into the human "glove." 

Carvin worked long at his clay shaping, until finally he crafted a beautiful, ornate vessel. He had allowed his earlier pieces to dry in the air, but they crumbled and returned to the dirt from which they came. The answer came to him as he watched the Saura rise. Fire, it seemed, would harden the dirt into something permanent. After all, he had been taught that the fires of the Saura had hardened the original dust and shaped it into his homeland of Irk.

Over a period of nearly a week he dried his vessel over hot flames, being only able to cook the dirt to hardness during the night when Life was not wandering around, able to detect the smoke from his fire.

Finally, his bottle, and the first true Irken artwork, was completed. He paraded his vessel among the other small Irkens. Proudly, he announced that he had created an object so beautiful and yet so small that the even the all-powerful Life could not do any better.

When word of this "mystical object" reached Life he was furious. He tore through the camps of the frightened Irkens, destroying them, sending up homes and lives in flame. He demanded the object and its creator be brought before him.

Carvin rushed to the God's feet, holding up his clay pot. The God looked down at it and laughed. "That's the thing so beautiful that I could do no better?" Life grasped Carvin by his tiny antennae so hard that a kink formed in them. From that day forth, all male Irkens bore life's handiwork on their heads in the form of a kink at the end of the antennae.

Carvin looked fearfully at the God, his knees knocking together. "It's… it's not what's on the outside that's beautiful, it's what is on the inside, where only a God could see it."

Life snorted. "We'll see about THAT!" he announced, flying into the jar.

Within seconds, Carvin had plugged the entrance to the jar with wet clay, plunging the jar into a box filled with wet clay that he'd preparedand had his sister hide beneath her robes, to throw to him when he called for them. Life was surrounded by wet clay, through which he could not pass without being severely burned. 

Carvin ran as fast as his legs would take him to the side of the deep pool, always being careful not to fall and drop his box. The God's foul tongue reached Carvin's antennae, burning his mind with their filth. Such words are beyond the swearing you young Irkens use, beyond even the worst star-ship sailor, for when Gods speak words of that nature they burn with a flame of hatred as hot as the Saura. It took all Carvin's young strength to ignore the God's threats of ripping out his lungs through his eye sockets until with one final heave, he threw the box into the pool, where it sank to the bottom, taking Life trapped within an air pocket to the depths with it.

Joy spread among the Irkens. A great feast was held, with dancing and playing in Carvin's honor. The Irkens no longer had to be afraid to walk abroad, or eat from the delicious gardens. The God was gone, defeated, and they were free. In Carvin's honor they covered their rough hands with Carveens, and ordered that no male or female Irken should walk abroad without this protection over their rough, unsightly claws. 

It was decided among the tribe leaders that Carvin should be held in high regard, as a savior of the race. None, not even the highest of tribal leaders, save Carvin would be allowed to come within a mile of that deadly pool where the God rested. 

Defeating Life did not bring the Irkens peace. The tribal lords, as soon as the feasting and celebration of the defeat ended, immediately began warring over the best places in the luscious gardens Life had given rise to. 

If you were an Anashi, you could have the round, red and white plants and the tall, silver-white stalks that were sweet to the mouth. If you were a Gorad, you could have the long yellow plant and the ground-growing leaves. Still yet, if you were a Thee, you could have the insects that crawled in the wall, making sweet-tasting liquids. It wasn't uncommon to see one Irken stabbing another over the simple offense of staring longingly at a plant or insect you were not allowed to eat. Trading, or even communication other than war, between tribes was forbidden and breaking that taboo was viewed as treachery.

Carvin was horrified to see the Irkens slaughter one another. Had not Life murdered enough of them and decorated the walls of his caves with their blood? Why must the Irkens be as cruel as the absent God to one another? Why did they feel the need to take Irkens who could very well be their brothers and sisters as slaves and beat whip marks into their skin?

Taking up his sisters and his mother, his father being long dead, Carvin retreated to a life away from all this chaos by taking up residence alongside the pool where he'd banished the cruel God Life. He stayed away from the political struggles, despite the pleading of great Irken tribe leaders that he, their savior, should join THEM in war against all other Irkens. Turning them down, he survived on only bitter tasting plants that grew along the edges of the liquid ice.

However, being far wiser than any other living Irken at the time, he saw the need to unify the tribes of Irk if the species were to survive. So he took a wife from the fringes of society, not affiliated with any particular tribe or race, and carried her away to live with him beside the pool.

Within twenty years they laid their first egg, hatching forth a beautiful young girl smeet. Carvin named her "Tanzia." 

So, shall this be continued or not?

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Beta Reading and de-writers Blocking of me by Cyndy, author of Peculiar Institution.

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Mythology Art: [Add the usual http and www to the address when copying the address over, they won't show up on fanfiction.net as complete addresses.]

side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=238798

side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=238562

Institution Art by me:

side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=238558


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